Does Voting Imply Choice?

Second Quarter 2000

by Jeson Ingraham

Americans insist on choice—at least most of the time. So why, in this age of expanding grocery aisles, multiple cable TV packages, and even church shopping, do they find themselves so dissatisfied on election day?

In recent years, voter turnout has reached embarrassingly low levels. The 1998 congressional elections attracted just 36.4 percent of potential voters. The 1996 presidential election brought out only 49 percent, the first time in 70 years that fewer than half voted for the president. Surveys show that voters believe candidates and political parties pay more attention to special-interest money than they do to ordinary voters. This has led to efforts at campaign finance reform in order to attract and empower more voters. In the end, however, campaign finance reform falls short of acknowledging the empty vault of our two-party system.

In the March issue of Newsweek, Jonathan Alter prepares voters for the "empty feeling" they will experience in choosing between Al Gore and George W. Bush this November: "The source of the ennui is a vague dissatisfaction with both parties that is becoming a permanent condition of the American electorate." Lack of choice more than big money is the greater cause of voter disinterest and discouragement. To address this problem voters must be convinced that their votes do make a difference, and for that to happen, they need more choices.

There are two relatively simple changes in the way votes are cast that could make a significant difference in the empowerment of voters. The first and simplest electoral reform that Americans should consider is called the Instant Runoff Vote (IRV). Instead of being allowed to vote for only one candidate, the voter, under IRV, may rank as many of the candidates on the ballot as he or she chooses. For example, voters rank their preferred candidate first, their second preference second, and on down. When the votes are counted, if no candidate wins a majority, then the candidate who received the fewest first-place votes is eliminated and the counting starts again. This time, however, all of the second-choice votes made by those whose first-choice votes went to the eliminated candidate are added to the total numbers for the remaining candidates. If after the new count no candidate has yet received a majority of the votes, then the process is repeated, this time eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes and redistributing that candidate's third-choice votes to the others. One candidate eventually wins a majority.

What IRV does is to encourage more than two parties to run candidates for election, even if the new parties start out small. Voters who prefer candidates of smaller parties will not have to decide (as they do now) either to cast a meaningless vote (because they know their preferred candidate can't win) or, instead, to cast their vote for the lesser of evils whom they think has a chance of winning, even though they do not favor that candidate as much as their first preference. Rather, with IRV, they can rank their preferred candidate first, the lesser-of-evils candidate second, and so on. As more and more voters do this, it will become ever more likely that no candidate will win on the first count of the ballots. Thus, even if a voter's preferred candidate is eliminated after the first round of counting, his or her second-choice vote will count in the next round. Real choice produces empowerment.

Voters have even greater choice in a system called the Single Transferable Vote (STV). Instead of voters ranking candidates (as in IRV) in a single-member electoral district where a single, majority winner will eventually be chosen, the STV first requires an alteration of the electoral districts. Let's say there is a state that has 20 seats in the House of Representatives. It now has 20, single-member electoral districts. By means of STV, the state could, for example, establish just four electoral districts, in each of which, five candidates would be elected. Voters would each have five votes and could use those votes any way they wanted. They could vote for one candidate in each of five parties in a ranked order of one through five. Or they could give all five of their ranked votes to the five candidates in one preferred party. When the votes are counted, any candidate who receives a majority wins one of the five seats. In the first round of counting there may be none or perhaps only one winner. For the second round of counting, the last-place candidate is eliminated and the second-choice votes of those who had voted for the eliminated candidate are transferred to those still in the running. This process is followed until all five seats in that district are filled.

STV is even more likely than IRV to encourage the formation of more parties, giving voters more choices from among candidates and parties that they can believe in. It would also mean greater competition, which would force candidates and parties to distinguish themselves more clearly from one another.

Support for IRV is now growing in California, Washington, Vermont, New Mexico, and Alaska. Once American voters learn that there are simple voting reforms that can give a diverse citizenry the choices it needs, it is hard to imagine that they won't opt for more choice. After all, how much longer can 270 million Americans be strapped into the political straitjacket of just two political parties?

[Jeson Ingraham is a graduate of Gordon College and now working as a freelance journalist in Wenham, Massachusetts.]